Philadelphia

After months of planning, hours of pulling my hair out, and schmoozing sponsor after sponsor ( I <3 you Quaker!), I’m proud to say the actual session portion of the conference went off without a hitch.

Yippee! 🙂

BUT, I can’t even begin to tell you how long or crazy of a day it was. Insane. Absolutely insane. 😉

Mostly because my day started before 5:00am. That’s the time I agreed to meet a bunch of fabulous bloggers for a long early run. Can you believe how many smiling faces were up to run between 8 and 14 miles at 5:00am this morning.

Told you it was insane. 😉

Ashley (our fearless leader who organized the run) gave the group the final instructions of where to go before we were off and running.

I had to be back at the hotel by 6:30, so I hung back and did the 45 minute out and back route. As a group we ran up Market Street before running into the path that leads to the famous Kelly Drive. It was a very quiet, spooky run. I was extra happy we were in a large group and not running by our lonesomes – that would have been even more spooky and unsafe.

On my way back I ran into the shorter 6:00am group. Turns out there were just as many crazies willing to get up at 6:00am to run as there were for the 5:00am group.

I finished the tail end of the run with my new friend Alyssa. She’s a Philly local (Florida original) who holds a mean 9:00 minute conversational pace. We spent the last 4.5 miles covering everything from being a twin (her twin sister and her both live in Philly!) to engagements (she has a great engagement story that had me gasping for air with shock and laughter). There is nothing better than running and meeting new people. 🙂

We were a little short of my 9 mile goal, but I’ll take it. 🙂

I had to shower and change very quickly to head downstairs and help set up for the day. We still had morning check-in for all the stragglers who couldn’t make it yesterday afternoon.

We also had a gorgeous breakfast display thanks to our amazing friends at Attune.

We even had a special gluten-free section for all our friends with special dietary needs.

I made a small bowl of Uncle Sam’s Cereal, fresh fruit, and blueberry Oikos (which I ate standing up and running around like a mad woman) while everyone was piling in for the day.

I so wish I could remember the name of the blogger who gave me the mini pumpkin spice donut, but it was amazing.

I started getting very nervous about having to speak in front of such a large crowd for the opening remarks. I decided to jot down a few notes, so I wouldn’t leave anyone. The strategy worked out perfectly – I was able to say what I needed to say and didn’t leave anyone out.

Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. My heart is fluttering a million beats a minute. The Healthy Living Summit is finally here and I couldn’t be more ecstatic on how great it’s gone so far. Woo hoo!!!! 🙂 Seriously, tonight was amazing and I couldn’t have done it without all of the help of my countless more »

There is nothing like knocking out a beautiful 4 mile run with friends in a new city! Love. 🙂 This morning Ben, Heather, Kelly, and I met in the hotel lobby for a quick run around the city. We wanted to do 5 miles, but a random downpour of rain forced us to turn around more »

4+ hours of swag bag stuffing later… it was time to get some fresh air. A small group of early Healthy Living Summit arrivals decided to head out for dinner tonight and discover some of the great food Philadelphia has to offer. From Left to Right: Kath, Kelly, Heather, Kristin, Heather’s friend, Me, Kelly, Julie, more »